Student associations, members of the radical left Syriza party and other groups were among those who took part in the march.

Earlier on Saturday, students, teachers, workers and pensioners had laid wreaths at the polytechnic to honour the dozens killed in the 1973 revolt.

“Most of us feel that now is like the junta,” said protester Apostolis Sabaziotis, a psychologist who has been working for four months without being paid.

“The situation can change only if we resist,” said Panagiotis Sarantidis, who went to pay tribute to the dead students, holding his daughter in his arms.

The Communist Party also held its own demonstration.

They marched to the US embassy, which supported the six-year military dictatorship, holding banners reading “we can topple this new junta,” “write off the debt” and “capitalists should pay for the crisis.”

ANIMAL handlers involved in the making of The Hobbit movie trilogy say the production company is responsible for the deaths of up to 27 animals, largely because they were kept at a farm filled with bluffs, sinkholes and other “death traps.”

The American Humane Association, which is overseeing animal welfare on the films, says no animals were harmed during the actual filming. But it also says the handlers’ complaints highlight shortcomings in its oversight system, which monitors film sets, but not the facilities where the animals are housed and trained.

A spokesman for trilogy director Peter Jackson acknowledged that horses, goats, chickens and one sheep died at the farm near Wellington where about 150 animals were housed for the movies, but he said some of the deaths were from natural causes.

The spokesman, Matt Dravitzki, agreed that the deaths of two horses were avoidable, and said the production company moved quickly to improve conditions after they died.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first movie in the planned $500 million trilogy, is scheduled to launch with a red-carpet premiere on November 28 in Wellington and will open at theaters in the US and around the world in December.

The Associated Press spoke to four handlers who said the farm near Wellington was unsuitable for horses because it was peppered with bluffs, sinkholes and broken-down fencing. They said they repeatedly raised concerns about the farm with their superiors and the production company, owned by Warner Bros., but it continued to be used. They say they want their story aired publicly now to prevent similar deaths in the future.

One said that over time he buried three horses, as well as about six goats, six sheep and a dozen chickens. Others say two more horses suffered severe injuries but survived.

Handler Chris Langridge said he was hired as a horse trainer in November 2010, overseeing 50 or so horses, but immediately became concerned that the farm was full of “death traps.” He said he tried to fill in some of the sinkholes, made by underground streams, and even brought in his own fences to keep the horses away from the most dangerous areas. Ultimately, he said, it was an impossible task.

He said horses run at speeds of up to 50km/h and need to be housed on flat land: “It’s just a no-brainer.”

The first horse to die, he said, was a miniature named Rainbow.

“When I arrived at work in the morning, the pony was still alive but his back was broken. He’d come off a bank at speed and crash-landed,” Langridge said. “He was in a bad state.”

Rainbow, who had been slated for use as a hobbit horse, was euthanized. A week later, a horse named Doofus got caught in some fencing and sliced open its leg. That horse survived, but Langridge said he’d had enough.

He and his wife, Lynn, who was also working with the animals, said they quit in February 2011. The following month, they wrote an email to Brigitte Yorke, the Hobbit trilogy’s unit production manager, outlining their concerns.

Chris Langridge said he responded to Yorke’s request for more information but never received a reply after that.

Handler Johnny Smythe said that soon after Langridge left, a horse named Claire was found dead, its head submerged in a stream after it fell over a bluff. After that, he said, the horses were put in stables, where a third horse died.

Smythe said no autopsy was performed on the horse, which was named Zeppelin. Veterinary records say the horse died of natural causes, from a burst blood vessel, but Smythe said the horse was bloated and its intestines were full of a yellow liquid; he believes it died of digestive problems caused by new feed.

Smythe said the six goats and six sheep he buried died after falling into sinkholes, contracting worms or getting new feed after the grass was eaten. He said the chickens were often left out of their enclosure and that a dozen were mauled to death by dogs on two separate occasions.

Smythe said he was fired in October 2011 after arguing with his boss about the treatment of the animals.

A fourth handler, who didn’t want to be named because she feared it could jeopardise her future employment in the industry, said another horse, Molly, got caught in a fence and ripped her leg open, suffering permanent injuries.

…

The American Humane Association said in its report on “An Unexpected Journey” that it investigated the farm at the production company’s request. Dravitzki said the company contacted the AHA after Smythe alleged mistreatment of animals.

Mark Stubis, an association spokesman, said it investigated the farm in August 2011, months after the first deaths.

“We made safety recommendations to the animals’ living areas. The production company followed our recommendations and upgraded fence and farm housing, among other things,” the group said.

…

Stubis said the association acknowledges that what happens off-set remains a blind spot in its oversight.

“We would love to be able to monitor the training of animals and the housing of animals,” Stubis said. “It’s something we are looking into. We want to make sure the animals are treated well all the time.”

…

Hollywood has made animal welfare a stated priority for years.

In March, HBO cancelled the horse racing series “Luck” after three thoroughbred horses died during production. The network said it canceled the show because it could not guarantee against future accidents.

Peta to picket The Hobbit premiere after whistleblower reveals ‘preventable’ deaths and ‘needless suffering’ of animals on set: here.

Peter Jackson and Warner Bros. deny on-set troubles as the Humane Society pushes for oversight into what happens when the cameras stop rolling: here.

Since the infamous actors’ dispute over terms and conditions on The Hobbit, some Kiwi actors have had to endure on-set conditions that include sharing coloured prop contact lenses, their union says.

Phil Darkins, of Actors’ Equity, told a conference in Wellington yesterday he had also heard of actors being verbally abused, denied shelter, and not being offered blankets or warm drinks after long shoots in the water.

Those who spoke out would not get further work, he said.

“To go public is essentially falling on your sword and saying your career is over.”

Two years ago, Actors’ Equity had already spent 18 months trying to talk to the Screen Production and Development Association about getting binding terms and conditions for New Zealand actors – a move that would bring New Zealand in line with the rest of the English-speaking world.

New Zealand had guidelines only – and still did – and these were sometimes ignored, he said.

The dispute in 2010, in which unions called for actors not to sign up with The Hobbit until the row was sorted out, led to studios New Line, Warner Bros Pictures and MGM Pictures, as well as Hobbit director Sir Peter Jackson, saying this could force the production overseas.

The Government cut a deal, changing employment law – essentially making film workers contractors rather than employees – and giving Warner an increased tax concession to secure the films.

But documents provided to The Dominion Post under the Official Information Act later that year showed Jackson had emailed Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee’s office saying: “There is no connection between the blacklist [and its eventual retraction], and the choice of production base for The Hobbit.”

Mr Darkins said yesterday the “Hobbit dispute” was never an attack on The Hobbit.

But when the International Federation of Actors agreed to ask its worldwide members not to sign on to The Hobbit until binding terms and conditions were enshrined in New Zealand, it gave clout to the small New Zealand union, which decided to take action.

The fact that actors around the world had been asked not to sign on meant the production could never have been taken overseas, he said.

Mr Darkins – speaking at a Victoria University conference on work matters – also said the days of big-budget international film shoots in New Zealand were numbered.

When the “fad” of the fantasy film genre ended, most of the work would be in post-production, he said.

TOLKIEN’S GRANDSON DISCUSSES FAME’S DOWNSIDES

The grandson of JRR Tolkien has revealed how the Lord of the Rings movies tore his family apart and provoked a feud with his father.

Simon Tolkien, 53, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that the immense popularity of the film adaptations was akin to being “hit by a juggernaut”.

The former barrister, now himself a successful novelist, said he began to lose sight of his identity and became “suffocated” by being known as JRR Tolkien’s grandson.

The problems also sparked an “incredibly, dreadfully painful” feud with his father, Christopher, with the falling out becoming so bad that the pair did not speak for a while.

Christopher Tolkien, now 87, did not attend the premiere of the first Lord of the Rings movie, saying the Tolkien estate was better off avoiding any specific association with the trilogy.

Earlier this year, he told French newspaper Le Monde: “They gutted the book, making an action film for 15 to 25-year-olds.”

Simon Tolkien said the pair had since “sorted out all our differences”.

The arrival of a Tolkien blockbuster no longer filled him with trepidation and The Hobbit wouldn’t mean another “sideswipe from the juggernaut”.

Jared Leto is perhaps best known to the general public for his work as a film actor, most notably in David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) and Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000). However, in recent years he has devoted his attention to the world of music, as the lead singer of Thirty Seconds to Mars.

Artifact, directed by Leto himself, under the pseudonym Bartholomew Cubbins (of Dr. Seuss fame), revolves around major record label EMI’s decision to sue the band for $30 million in August 2008. The film was screened November 8 as part of the New York City documentary festival DOC NYC and previously, in September, at the Toronto film festival.

The “crime” committed by Leto’s group was simply wanting to excuse themselves from their existing, demonstrably illegitimate contract. EMI, however, claimed that Thirty Seconds to Mars had failed to deliver the three albums required by their agreement.

Leto and his band mates were understandably aggrieved at the fact that having sold over 2 million albums at the time of being taken to court, they had not received a penny in royalties and … were still $1.4 million in debt to EMI. This, as the film makes clear, is the standard operating procedure of the record companies, who are in the business, as one commentator notes, “of not paying musicians.”

Leto explained the predicament on the band’s web site: “We had been signed with them [EMI] for nine years. Under California law, where we lived and signed our deal one cannot be bound to a contract for more than seven years. …

“Yes, we have been sued by EMI. But NOT for failing to deliver music or for ‘quitting’. We have been sued by the corporation quite simply because roughly 45 days ago we exercised our legal right to terminate our old, out of date contract, which according to the law is null and void.

“We terminated for a number of reasons, which we won’t go into here (we’d rather not air dirty laundry) but basically our representatives could not get EMI to agree to make a fair and reasonable deal.”

Thirty Second to Mars’ struggle with EMI commenced just as the financial crisis erupted. The filming of what would become Artifact also began at that time and Leto, with a certain degree of self-importance, draws parallels between the plight of the band and global economic crisis. “As we are trying to make a deal with EMI the world is falling apart,” he comments. Nonetheless, insofar as the musician denounces the record giants and Wall Street as part of the same problem, he is on to something.

The Louisiana native comes across for the most part as quite a decent, grounded individual, as he narrates the film, reflecting on his and his brother and fellow band member Shannon’s childhood and the band’s origins, as well as commenting on their David and Goliath-like battle with EMI.

Indeed it was his elder brother, drummer Shannon, we are informed, who first infused Leto with a love of rock ‘n’ roll. Their mother, despite the economic challenges she faced, played her role also, encouraging the boys throughout a troubled upbringing. Leto’s recollection of his youth consists of having “instruments in one hand and food stamps in the other.”

The scenes involving Leto’s mother are sincere, but some of the material could have been left out, as it tends to become a little sentimental.

Leto’s musings about music are also not terribly enlightening, but this may depend on one’s reaction to his band’s sound. Those sequences in which the film becomes a bit of advertising for Thirty Seconds to Mars (perhaps inevitably, given that this is, after all, a documentary about the production of their third album, “This is War”) are among its least compelling.

In all fairness, Shannon Leto is undoubtedly an extraordinarily gifted drummer. Nor can one deny the talents of third band member, guitarist and keyboardist Tomo Milicevic.

In any event, the film does not stand and fall on the worthiness of the group’s music or the depth of its members’ insights. The central issue here is the objectively exploitive and predatory character of the record business.

The lead singer at one point sarcastically bemoans the fact that EMI legally controls their lives and music. He plays a brief tune on the piano and sighs, “They own everything.” He repeats this a number of times to emphasize his point.

Yes, indeed, Leto and his band mates fit the stereotype of naïve artists who knew little or nothing about the business side of the music industry. However, we do see all three of them earnestly trying to comprehend the complications of their predicament throughout the documentary. This involves lengthy scenes with foul-mouthed management and lawyers who proceed to give the band somewhat predictable advice.

Despite the financial and legal entanglements, Thirty Seconds to Mars diligently proceed to record “This is War” in Leto’s basement.

The larger than life British-born producer Mark “Flood” Ellis is summoned to work his magic. Flood’s reputation has preceded him, based on his work with New Order, U2, The Smashing Pumpkins and other major bands. He tends to impart fairly generic artistic platitudes, but his greatest talent, one presumes, does not lie in the quality of his aesthetic commentary.

In any event, the film appropriately spends some time discussing what led Thirty Seconds to Mars to Leto’s Hollywood basement, which was EMI’s “change of hands.”

Terra Firma Capital Partners, a private equity firm run by tycoon Guy Hands, obtained EMI in a $6.4 billion (£4.7 billion) public-to-private buyout transaction in August 2007. Hands immediately displayed his callous disregard for and lack of knowledge about the intricacies of the music industry, firing long-term staff members. The CEO’s new-look company quickly alienated Leto and his fellow band members.

So malevolent were company officials they even tried to prevent the making of the documentary, and indeed the independent production of the album “This is War.”

However, Mr. Hands ruthlessness eventually worked against him. His lack of expertise in the music industry backfired and before long, in 2011, Citigroup took over at EMI.

Leto describes the film in an early narration as “the age-old battle between art and commerce.” This is very true. And despite an initial idealistic desire not to compromise, as the piece progresses we see that Thirty Seconds to Mars are indeed forced to do just that. This harsh reality unfolds in a protracted sequence involving Leto as he waits patiently for a response to a proposed meeting with the record company. Days and nights pass by as he hears nothing. The desperation is palpable, and so is the situation of the artist who has his hands tied when it comes to dealing with the big music business corporations.

The filmmakers interview a wide variety of individuals, including fellow artists, journalists, music producers and even former record company executives. Some are more insightful in their remarks than others.

A somewhat cynical rhetorical question is posed by a fellow artist: “Can a band sell 20 million records without a label? Maybe. But then the label becomes interested and what choice does the artist have then?” His point being that despite the independent power of the Internet and other technological avenues, the artist will still need assistance from a major record label to advance his or her career.

This point is corroborated when Leto confides to his brother, while contemplating whether to stay with EMI or not, “Independence is a life commitment. It would be my job 24/7.” He is clearly deflated by the whole episode.

Presenting the film at the Toronto film festival, Leto was asked why his band hadn’t started its own record label. He suggested that there were others who would be better at that job. “Shannon and I like to make things and share them with the world,” he observed.

Leto also explained in Toronto, as Filmmaker magazine noted, “We are not an anti-record company. We are anti-greed. We all deserve to be treated fairly.” He praised most record company employees, but added, “It’s those few people at the top who are keeping a system that screws the artist, and a lot of times the employees, instead of rewarding them. That’s a corporate problem, not just a record business problem.”

One of the film’s strengths is that it underlines, perhaps only half-consciously, not simply the “antiquated” character of present artist-company business relations, but the incompatibility of a digital musical universe and the existence of profit-seeking private companies.

With sales falling sharply on an annual basis, the record companies are in serious crisis, one reason why they are trying to squeeze every last cent from the artists. The “pirating” of music is virtually impossible to stop in this day and age. In an amusing conclusion to the film, Leto asks a large concert audience how many of those present have the band’s latest album. A loud affirmative cheer goes up. He then asks how many have gotten the songs for free from the Internet. An equally loud cheer!

Music should be available to everyone free of charge, and the musicians compensated in a different manner. But that requires a different economic system.

To their credit, Leto and Thirty Seconds to Mars had the courage to take on EMI and the record business as a whole. Artifact is a genuine exposé of the ruthlessness and greed that dominates the music industry.

As I approached the stream crossing area, a flash of colour caught my eye. Next to a small bush were two magnificent saddlebill storks. They were undoubtedly on ‘honeymoon’ and the male was flapping his wings and really trying to show off to this ‘lady’ , but the female in typical fashion showed very little interest and kept turning away.

The male became increasingly frustrated and increased his efforts. Eventually, after about 30 minutes, the female accepted him. I could not help but think that some human romantic efforts have similar traits, but hopefully a little more sophisticated and subtle.

To actually see a saddlebill in the wild is always a thrill as they are large, impressive and colourful. In many parts of Africa, these storks are very rare, so to actually have them breeding in the Nairobi National Park is wonderful.

I know of some people that visit the park for the prime purpose of going on a ‘birding safari’. There are estimated to be over 550 species to see at various times of the year. Many are permanent residents while other bird species are migrants.

It is good to stop at a rest site or just switch off the car engine and listen to the incredible variety of bird songs that God has created. It is very calming and helps relieve stress. In my experience, while bird watching, animals such as lion, buffalo and rhino do at times get in the way.

Half a century ago, one of the biggest pharmaceutical scandals in post-war German history occurred. At the turn of 1961/1962, it was revealed that the stillbirths and deformities of thousands of children were due to ingestion of the drug Contergan, produced by the Grünenthal company in Stolberg near Aachen.

Contergan was one of the non-prescription sleeping and tranquillising agents sold by the German company that was founded in 1946. Grünenthal had advertised the drug as entirely harmless and marketed it widely since 1957. Because it also helped alleviate morning sickness occurring in the early months of pregnancy, it was taken by many expectant mothers. Now used as a drug to combat leprosy, the thalidomide component of Contergan caused embryonic damage to an estimated 10,000 children around the world, following its marketing as a sedative in 47 countries.

In the late 1950s, an increasing number of births of deformed children became evident in Germany. These children were born with stunted arms and legs, and sometimes with limbs entirely missing. As the real cause of the tragedy was unknown, public speculation initially focused on the possible effects of nuclear bomb tests conducted all around the world. In May 1958, a query about the matter was addressed to the German federal parliament. A connection between nuclear testing and the outbreak of birth deformities was denied by the federal government. A similar query was addressed to the federal president in 1961.

In May 1961, Grünenthal applied for Contergan to be made available only on prescription. Since the autumn of 1959, the company had become the subject of complaints and critical reports in medical journals, questioning the safety of the non-prescription drug. Doctors and their patients reported instances of “unpleasant feelings in hands and feet”, “burning pain”, “abnormal coldness”, “headache, dizziness, restlessness”, as well as “paralysis” and other complaints.

In a Spiegel magazine article of August 1961, doctors publicly declared their doubts about the harmlessness of the drug. It was then “being regularly taken by over a million people, including even babies and infants in the form of a raspberry flavoured syrup”. Thereafter, sales of the drug sharply declined.

Despite public outrage, the company stubbornly refused to “take this beneficial product from the market” because it feared a drastic drop in sales. Instead, Grünenthal tried to pacify doctors by sending them further advertising and circulars.

In November 1961, Hamburg geneticist Widukind Lenz—one of a number of scientists who had discovered a link between the deformities and thalidomide—personally intervened at Grünenthal to urge a halt to the drug’s production. But only after health officials threatened to ban the drug a few days later was Grünenthal’s “outraged” management prepared to take the drug off the market.

Roughly coinciding with Professor Lenz’s findings, American pharmacologist Frances Kelsey discovered the devastating effects of thalidomide on embryonic development. In her capacity as an employee of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), she refused admission of the substance into the US.

Kelsey demanded the drug undergo a test phase and challenged evidence presented to her by the industry. Notwithstanding, she was subjected until 1962 to increasing pressure from business and political circles to grant the drug’s authorisation. Harassment of the courageous scientist, whose work was to save the lives and health of countless people in the US, only began to abate when news of the Contergan scandal reached a wider public.

Many thousands of the children who fell victim to the drug died at birth. The survivors suffered and continue to suffer from serious birth defects, whose consequences prove more and more devastating with advancing age. Most of the victims live in Germany. Other people crippled by the drug are also to be found in Japan, Australia, Canada and Britain.

Grünenthal offered its victims up to 20,000 deutschmarks in damages if they refrained from further claims. Scattered instances of litigation taken by victims’ families began in 1962, but a comprehensive hearing was not granted until the one in Aachen in 1968. As the press reported in 1963, company head Hermann Wirtz and other leading managers of the business, having amassed fortunes thanks to thalidomide, used the intervening period to arrange extensive transfers of their assets.

In January 1968, former laboratory director Heinrich Mückter and other senior Grünenthal personnel were put on trial. The case ended in April 1970, when proceedings were terminated “because of the minor level of guilt of the accused and the lack of public interest” in securing a conviction. The pharmaceutical company provided approximately 100 million marks as compensation for the victims.

A Polish court had accused Heinrich Mückter, who died in 1987, of conducting medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners and forced labourers during the Nazi era. However, he managed a timely escape to the West, where he was appointed scientific director at Grünenthal and headed work on the development of Contergan.

The family of Hermann Wirtz rejected demands for clarification of these events, arguing: “Our company was founded in the postwar period. Therefore, its history does not fall within the period of National Socialism and there are no issues to be resolved in relation to those times”.

WAZ had reported that the Nazis concerned were not merely low-level party hacks or hangers-on in the Nazi system. As chemists and physicians, they had held leading positions within the organisation and were involved in cruel and lethal human experiments. War criminals, who had served fascist Germany as poison gas experts, researchers in the Institute for Typhus and Viral Research or as doctors in concentration camps, swapped their bloodstained lab coats for pinstriped suits. Relatively little is publicly known about the career moves these men succeeded in making after the end of the war—Grünenthal’s archives remain closed to this day.

The opulent Wirtz clan, whose consortium includes the Dalli-Werke detergent manufacturer and the Maurer & Wirtz perfume works, as well as the Grünenthal pharmaceutical company, and whose private fortune amounts to an estimated €4 billion (US$5 billion), today refers to the thalidomide scandal as “an unforeseeable disaster”.

The Grünenthal company has continually sought to suppress any evidence demonstrating that, when suspicion of the devastating side effects emerged, it refused to withdraw its highly profitable drug from the market.

The ARD television channel thus had to wait until 2007 to broadcast its two-part programme, “A single tablet”. Adolf Winkelmann’s feature film had already been completed in 2006 and was due for broadcast in the same year. But Grünenthal succeeded in taking legal steps to prevent its broadcast. Only after protracted litigation did the German supreme court finally give the filmmakers and the TV station permission to go ahead.

Contergan victim Stephan Nuding, who had to force himself to watch the film, explained that he had been reduced to crying like a baby owing to the surfacing of so many suppressed feelings. Nuding had spent six years of his life in hospital and endured 16 operations. As an historian, he is still struggling to uncover the all the factors contributing to the scandal. Summing up his life, he says: “We are fifty and our bodies feel like eighty. But we still have strength”.

The world-renowned opera singer Thomas Quasthoff is one of the approximately 2,300 50-year-old and older Contergan victims living in Germany. In a recent interview, he said he had indignantly rejected an invitation from the Grünenthal company to give a concert on their premises.

In 1972, the Contergan Foundation for Disabled People was established with the help of the federal government, which eventually accepted the financial burden of the victims’ compensation. After the available funds there were exhausted, Grünenthal transferred another €50 million (US$64 million) to the foundation in 2009. Each of the victims receives a monthly pension of between €250 (US$318) and €1,127 (US$1,432), depending on the degree of disability.

After more than 50 agonising years of humiliation and the absence of any apology from the Grünenthal pharmaceutical company, a monument to the victims of Contergan was finally unveiled in the Frankental Cultural Centre in Stolberg on August 30 of this year.

However, the Federal Association of Contergan Victims distanced itself from this event on the grounds that Grünenthal had far more pressing things to do than sponsor a memorial.

Grünenthal director Harald Stock’s speech at the monument’s inauguration, in which he offered an apology for the first time, met with criticism from thalidomide victims associations around the world.

“We expect deeds, not just words”, said Ilonka Strebitz, spokesperson for the German Federal Association of Contergan Victims, “and if these deeds don’t eventuate, then this event will remain a mere PR stunt”. Australian victims called the gesture “pathetic”. Expressing its disappointment with the extremely late apology, the Japanese Sakigake victims association stated: “The number of victims would have been fewer if the company had stopped selling the drug earlier”.

The victims’ and their families’ struggle for financial compensation for their pain and suffering, for pensions and also for the full disclosure of the underlying causes of Germany’s greatest pharmaceutical scandal endures to this day.

A BEATRICE man was last week ordered to perform 245 hours of community service for hunting and killing an impala without a permit. Simbarashe Chikowe (23) of Rusimbiro Farm in Beatrice admitted to contravening section 59 (2) of the Parks and Wildlife Act. The act stipulates that it is unlawful for one to hunt animals on any land without a licence. Chikowe appeared before Chitungwiza magistrate Mr Kudakwashe Jarabini where it was proved that he killed the impala and sold the meat to locals.

Mr Jarabini slapped him with a 10-month jail term, but conditionally set aside three months for five years. The remaining seven months were suspended on condition that he performed 245 hours of unpaid work at Stewsbury Primary School in Beatrice.

Prosecutor Mr Edmond Ndamabakuwa proved that Chikowe killed the animal on June 29 while on a hunting expedition.

An ever increasing number of U.S. troops are fighting for peace in Afghanistan. But an investigative journalist claims to have revealed the shocking truth about surprise night raids by American forces and secret prisons where detainees are routinely tortured.

KABUL — Afghanistan’s president says U.S. forces are continuing to capture and hold Afghans in violation of an agreement signed between the two countries.

President Hamid Karzai says in a statement issued late Sunday that some detainees are still held by U.S. forces even though Afghan judges have ruled that they be released. He also decries the continued arrest of Afghans by U.S. forces.

Karzai’s office says these acts “are completely against the agreement that has been signed.” The two countries signed the detainee transfer pact in March but the handover has been slowed by the U.S. The Americans argue that Kabul is not ready to take over detainee management, and also insist the Afghan government agree to hold without trial some detainees that the U.S. deems too dangerous to release.